FREE ESSAY ON INTERRACIAL CHILDREN

INTERRACIAL CHILDREN

Proposal: Would there be a benefit for interracial children having a multiracial box on
any application as means of identifying interracial children.
Abstract
Despite growing numbers, public images of interracial people - who have been part of the
American landscape since the first Africans reached America's shores. Confusion
surrounding race stems from the illogic used to define it. Slavery laws and social
practices set a precedent - which survives to this day.
Traditionally, White America as a whole has disenfranchised a people who appears or by
definition has physical characteristics that challenge their hue as White, today, this
challenge is more evident than ever as marriages of different races has climbed in the
United States. According to the United States Census data, there are over one million
interracial marriages. Marriages between white men and Asian women are highest,
supporting almost 25 percent of all interracial covenants. It is estimated that one out
of every four marriages is between blacks and whites.
This research proposal will designate its focus and energy toward the offspring of
interracial couples. Until recently, conventional wisdom typically classified an
interracial child as being of the same race as the minority parent. It is this limited
and compartmentalized approach that has warranted a push for reclassification of
interracial children. A child of an interracial partnership should have the right to
choose which race identifies them. This analysis will examine the need for affirming the
uniqueness of the child and why a full racial heritage will conceal a more settled,
secure child. 
Once a child has cultural security, this research will prove that interracial children
will dissipate the belief of inferiority among the minority parent.
The basis of this analysis will contrast the studies that interracial children are
inferior, abnormal, lack true identity, and challenge the classification of The one drop
rule identification codes from American Minority Peoples a study in racial and cultural
conflicts in the United States: by Donald Young. 
Donald Young, American Minority People, 1932, believes, historically, the major
contribution toward race mixture in the United States primarily resulted from
exploration, immigration, excess of males among the mobile group. He adds, The sex
impulse is a constant factor in men whose home family relations have been broken or
interrupted from a long journey of exploration. These hardy adventures that first settled
the eastern region of the United States began a mixture of white and Indian blood. With
the introduction of slavery in the United States, the presence of slaves and minority
women of inferior social status was a temptation to illicit relationships, for such women
were property and were held cheap by the white men of the highest social class. 
Women of an inferior group were considered prey to the white males causing an inferior
mixture of interracial offspring.
The legal definition of the inferior race is any degree of mixture from one-half down to
the slightest trace. This historical mindset is the real basis and justification for
popular pressure against the mixture of peoples who may readily be distinguished from
each other either because of racial features or because of cultural differences. Donald
Young suggest Children of mixed cultures are much more likely to be social liabilities
than those whose parents accept a common culture. The mixed blood is thus an unadjusted
person. His immediate presence has no respected place in society. 
The significance of all this in the problems of race mixture lies in the fact that the
attendant group break down social as well as political barriers separating or mixing
cultural groups leaving percentages of more than one culture thus creating inferior
races. Politics have been the forum for defining race and the hierarchy of racial
privilege in the country since the first African slaves were brought here in 1619. 
Since then, individuals and groups have sought redress in matters of race through the
powers of law, political office, and the interpretation of our government underpinning:
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Measurements of progress and regress are marked
by legislative acts (including Dred Scott verse. Sandford [1857], the Emancipation
Proclamation or Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution [1865], Brown verses Board of
Education [1954], the voting Rights Act of 1964, and Loving verse Virginia). It wasn't
until 1967, in the U.S. Supreme Court's Loving verse Virginia decision, that remaining
anti-miscegenation laws (still on the books in seventeen states at the time) were
overruled. Richard and Mildred Loving were the appellants in the case. In 1958 the
newlywed Loving were arrested in their Virginia hometown for being married to each other.
She was black he was white. Rather than face incarceration, they moved back in with their
respective parents, then moved together to Washington, D.C., where they lived for several
years. The Virginia judges ruling also ordered that they never visit Virginia together.
(Funderburg p26) 
For as long as interracial couples have chosen to settle down and marry in this country,
they have confronted the question. But what about the children. 
What category will serve to identify the mixed race child. Laws and the threat of social
censure never successfully precluded interracial relationships and the conception of
biracial children. Still, since the Loving decision, black-white marriages have increased
dramatically: According to the census, they jumped 378 percent from 1970 to 1992 (from
65,000 to 246,000). (Funderburg p26) Americans are tired of being divided and categorized
along racial and ethnic lines. A multiracial box would unify Americans and help heal
racial tensions, said Jennifer Nelson executive director of ACRI, We urge President
Clinton to reject the federal task force's recommendations and support a multiracial box
on the U.S. Census. Some citizens feel uncomfortable when asked to place themselves in a
single category, in effect denying half their ancestry. So the request arose for a
generic mixed-race category on the census.
The American Civil Rights Institute denounced the federal government's rejection of the
multiracial category on the U.S. census and other federal forms. The federal task force
said the idea for a multiracial box was turned down because the category would, in
effect, create another population group and no doubt add to racial tension and further
fragmentation of our population. 
The best approach to this argument would be to eliminate race as a category on the census
altogether, said Nelson.
The most vocal opponents of such a course were the professional leaders of various ethnic
groups, fearful that allowing people to choose mixed would mean fewer in their own
category and, by extension, likely would result in less political clout for them. So the
politicos came up with the pick more than one option which will allow the so-called
leaders of many groups to claim they represent at least as many and more people than
before.
Sadly, the government of a nation dedicated to liberty and equality under the law is
using arbitrary racial characteristics as a wedge to pry Americans further apart. Dasbach
said. It used to be that Americans of mixed parentage had to identify with one parent
only. The parents, at best, think they've done something wonderful in putting together a
family that defies racial convention. (Funderburg p27). The theory that any amount of
black blood makes a person black has no corollary within other racial groups, especially
not whites. On e can be black and have white blood (even to the point of having a white
parent, but one cannot be white and have black blood. 
Joy Zarembka of Harenford, Pennsylvania says I'm biracial - when to some extent, some
interracial people in this country are classified as black, have white blood and can pass
as white. The one drop rule needs to be eliminated. Larene Lasonde of Decatur, Georgia
says  The one-drop theory, if you think about it, clearly is the last vestige of the
slave codes; it's the only law left that is still enforceable, if not by statue, by
pattern and practice. I have black professors at Atlanta University who took that
position. You've got a drop of black blood, you're black. You're quoting a slave coed!
Quoting a slave code to me! I'm not denying that drop of black blood, but I am not going
to be dictated to by it. Get rid of it and let me choose. Counting people as black when
they have a non-black parent is a return to the old racist one drop rule. But now some
civil rights advocates would support such a means of identifying people - one that this
census 2000 is supposed to eliminate. This new plan of checking multiple boxes will lead
to further racial and ethnic divide. Instead of adding more hyphens, the federal
government should be advocating for one simple box - American, said Jennifer Nelson.
In any of the two methods in this research, discrimination against interracial person
would easily continue. The multiracial category would serve civic health by undermining
the obsession with race and ethnicity that fuel identity politics. Such politics proceed
on the assumption that individuals are defined by their membership in this or that racial
or ethnic group, often a group that cultivates its senses of solidarity by nurturing its
grievances. The interracial child will benefit in a society that categorizes him or her
as American.
The significance of all this is the problem of race mixture lies in the fact that the
attendant groups break down social as well as political barriers separating or mixing
cultural groups. After assessing both sides of the argument, I conclude that my research
yet circumstantial extended a political view those interracial children could not benefit
from the one drop rule and question the intent to add a multiracial box as a means of
identifying interracial children. 
The challenge of classification causing a lack of true identity was researched from a
perspective of actual multiracial children who are now adults was limited to a one-sided
view that only was against the one drop rule and had no input for a multiracial category.

Work Cited
Funderburg, (1994). Black, white, other: biracial American talk about race and identity.
New York.
Hofstadter, R. (1965) The Paranoid Style in American Politics. New York, Knopf.
Jenkins, J. (1992) The Politics, of Empowerment Detroit: Wayne State University
Mann, C (1993) Unequal Justice: A Question of Color Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University
Press
Mathaban, M, (1992) Black and White: The Triumph of Love over Prejudice and Taboo. New
York
Murray C (1994) The Bell Curve. New York: Free Press 
Pincus, F (1994) Race and Ethic Conflict. Boulder 
Porterfield, E (1978) Black and white mixed marriage
Chicage: Nelson Hall
Wrigt K (1985) The Great American Crime Myth 
New York
Wright, R (1996) Native Son. New York: Harper to Row
Bibliography
Work Cited
Funderburg, (1994). Black, white, other: biracial American talk about race and identity.
New York.
Hofstadter, R. (1965) The Paranoid Style in American Politics. New York, Knopf.
Jenkins, J. (1992) The Politics, of Empowerment Detroit: Wayne State University
Mann, C (1993) Unequal Justice: A Question of Color Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University
Press
Mathaban, M, (1992) Black and White: The Triumph of Love over Prejudice and Taboo. New
York
Murray C (1994) The Bell Curve. New York: Free Press 
Pincus, F (1994) Race and Ethic Conflict. Boulder 
Porterfield, E (1978) Black and white mixed marriage
Chicage: Nelson Hall
Wrigt K (1985) The Great American Crime Myth 
New York
Wright, R (1996) Native Son. New York: Harper to Row